Tuesday, September 6, 2011

CONFESSIONS OF A CLOSET GEEK ... THE SAGA BEGINS

Entry 1.1
Hi everybody, my name charlie and I am a geek.  
(Insert group “Hi Charlie”)
To those of you who are reading this, this statement of fact is neither shocking nor all that interesting. However, it may shock you to know that I was not always a geek.
Well at least I didn’t think so.
Lets go back a few years. It’s 2005 and one of my very good friends decided that myself and another friend (who is a huge comic book and sci-fi geek) should attend Shoreleave. I truly had no interest in going, but the promise of parties and beer was enough to convince me to check it out. I had to admit that despite being surrounded by geeks, (of which I did not consider my self one, despite owning a number of versions of the star wars trilogy, 4 sets of the lord of the rings books, the full box set of LOR and holding my own in a various geeked out conversation about Star Wars, Star Trek and why I liked Stargate the movie better than the series) I had a great time, yet there was no way I was a geek.
An invite later that year to Farpoint, pretty much had the same end result but this time I knew a few people. Yet still not a geek.
To me geeks were nerds. I was a musician, played sports, I am a filmmaker, I have always had girlfriends, didn’t live in my mothers basement etc. I did however , name all my computers and hard drives after places in LOR and my two flash drives are named Bill & Shadowfax.  To me this was just cool, no proof of geekdom here.
Not long after, a friend of mine came to me with the idea for a TV show/Web series called “Accidental Heroes” about a bunch of gamer geeks who get mistaken for superheroes, and find that it’s easier to try to be superheroes then convince the public they aren’t. This was before Kick Ass and all the superheroes shows that followed, except for the show “Heroes”,  which I didn't watch because, I, was not a geek, We shot AH as a pilot series, my partner  Meredith adding the geek element to the script (as she is a total geek) and it came out damn good and damn funny. We aired it as webisodes on Stay tuned TV and won an award of actual cash for the amount of hits we got. Making AH was one of the most fun shoots we had done, and while I was sure I wasn’t a geek, I was pretty sure I wanted to do more stuff like AH. 
At this juncture it began to be pointed out to me that I was in fact a geek. Evidence to support this absurd theory, my LOR named software, my replica Harrison Ford pistol from Blade Runner and last but certainly not least my attendance at.. Conventions.
Yes I was dragged to Arisia in 2009 so we could get the word out about Accidental Heroes, Lunacon 2009 followed with me being on a number of filmmaker panels. 
HOWEVER … Still not a geek … I think … Just a sci-fi filmmaker playing among the fans. Yeah right,
Another year, another scifi pilot called Chronicles of Bob. More Cons, more panels, now moderator on panels, now panels that have nothing to do, or little to do with filmmaking, with names like, “Serenity, almost a perfect movie” and “Why do great shows like The Dresden files get axed after one season when survivor is on season 38?) and what is worse these panels were suggested …. By me.
Yes it was a long road to come to terms with my inner geekdom. It wasnt easy, and at times, frightening, but as I sit here starting this blog wearing my Serenity T-shirt doing pre-pre-pre-production for Maries Zero Gravity Bar & Grill I realize I am a geek, and I am fine with it.  
ghaj ghobe' taHvIp!

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